Order can be maintained when working with cattle by distracting them with other livestock, real life examples on farms have shown.

Cattle frighten less when there are distractions from the human element, with old sows, llamas and even donkeys used to grab the attention of suspicious bovines, according to Miriam Parker of Livestockwise.

Several examples existed of farmers using other species around their holding, she told delegates at the inaugural Women in Dairy conference at Worcester.

In the case of pigs, she reasoned it was logical for a herbivore to be very wary of an omnivore.

Her message was that a great deal of knowledge of livestock behaviour had been forgotten, and it was time we relearnt it.

“In the UK we have lost the ability to train cattle but elsewhere they still use draft animals,” she said.

“Our challenges are huge, we have to move animals at speed with no stress.”

Referencing alarming health and safety figures, she said the “brutal truth” was that there had been 29 deaths in five years from handling accidents in the cattle sector.

The principles behind such common problems as mastitis, infertility and lameness are explained in detail and linked to effective control programmes. The same approach is taken towards a full range of potential cattle disorders, broadly grouped according to age and development of the animal from the young calf to the adult.